In short: you are not supposed to actually login with user root credentials in any given moment. In Ubuntu (and several other distributions) you are supposed to use one or more unprivileged accounts all the time, and get the required priviliges through sudo when you need that. If you insist on setting a root password, you can do it anyway:

Open a terminal emulator

Type sudo passwd root, then press Return.

Note that this only allows user escalation through the su command and text logins (from a real or virtual terminal). If you wish, you can even allow root graphical logins: you are invited to search through Google “root login [your login manager: for example, gdm in GNOME, kdm in KDE]” to see how it can be done.

2) The password for user [USERNAME] for the [DISTRIBUTION] Linux image is wrong? What is the correct password for [USERNAME]?

As far as we can do, we try to ensure to supply correct username/password couples are provided. It might happen – and it will happen, especially if we continue adding user-provided images that we cannot test thoroughly – that this is not the case. Often, we cannot re-download the images, change the passwords and reupload them as it becomes extremely costly and time-demanding for us.

Here is how you can nevertheless get access to the image (we will be adding more tips)

If the bootloader for the image is GRUB (you may spot a *GNU GRUB* line while booting)

a) Press E.

b) A line editor opens: press the right arrow (or the END key if it works), then add ” single” (without the quotes, and with the trailing space), then press ENTER.

c) Press B.

The Linux system will boot in single-user mode: what matters to you is that you can issue this command

passwd [USERNAME]

and change the relevant password without being asked for the current one (yes, it works also with the root user). Be sure to enter it twice correctly.

d) Type reboot, and then press ENTER.

The system will restart. You should be able to access it correctly after the next boot.

3) Your Ubuntu image has the Italian keyboard layout? How do I fix that?

Open a Terminal window, then type

sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

and press ENTER. Choose the keyboard layout you prefer from the ones listed there.

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53 Responses to FAQ

I’ve just downloaded the Kubuntu image to try ‘Umbrello UML’. I need to install it and the method you describe here doesn’t work. I just don’t understand why you think people interested in playing with distro don’t need root access.

There are several different ways in which the “principle of minimum privilege” can be enforced, and I think that defaulting to sudo might be a good way. In this page I am not defending my position or everyone else’s but just stating what is the default practice in Ubuntu (and we actually don’t change default practice unless there is a specific need not addressable in any other way).

Anyway, if you give some more details on what of the steps to set a root password in Ubuntu stated here do not work I can try to help you

What I’m saying is that you should provide the password of an administrator user, best if it’s the root, cause in a few occasions this is the only one that works. How much self-damage I can do with it, should be a concern for myself only, shouldn’t? 🙂

Anyway, I’ve done as you explain:

– From the user that starts as default, open a terminal
– sudo passwd root

Then it asks me a password that I don’t know. I’ve also tried su – root with similar results.
Thanks for the help

As a matter of fact, as I said earlier, we won’t provide a root password for Ubuntu images (and for those other distribution that decide not to set a root password by default) because one of the aim of the project for vanilla images is to be “vanilla” even in what can possibly be considered a defect or even bother users: many will not complain about not having a root password, and others will. If this is the case (and you may be right as there is no definitive truth in matter like these) maybe Ubuntu would not be a right choice for you if you were using it as a OS in your machine. Anyway, this is not the time to get into philosophy…

When you actually run sudo passwd root you should get more or less this:

I downloaded and opened the “Fedora 16 i686” from [https://virtualboxes.org/images/fedora/]. After booting the VM on Oracle Virtualbox, I’m required to log in. There seems to be a user already called “fedora” and I don’t know how to log in or how to open a terminal. (I’m quite new on Linux and entirely new on Fedora). Above the user name it says “fedora16” which changes into “fedora release 16 (Verne)” when clicked.

When I press enter, leaving the password field blank, a message appears: “Authentication failure”.

What do I do wrong? How can I login or create a new user without knowing the password?

Hello,
I downloaded CentOS 6.0 base x86_64, however the user name and password provided on the download page (u: root, p: reverse) do not work. I also tried other user/password combinations on that page, and none work.
Can anyone help? Thanks!

Hi,I’ve installed the Opensolaris VM. The ‘opens’ login works OK but when I tried to be the root user using ‘sudo su’, none of these usual passwords work: opensolaris toor reverse. What is the password for root user?

I downloaded CentOS 5.3, however the user name and password provided on the download page (root/roottoor, centos/reverse) do not work. I also tried other user/password combinations on that page, and none work.

I tried clicking on the CentOS .vbox file in my Ubuntu File Explorer. This started the Oracle VM Manager Interface with the CentOS machine appearing in the list of machines on the left.I was then able to start the VM ok.

It’s probably possible to carry out this manoevre to the same effect with the command line vboxmanage tool but I don’t know the commands required. At any rate clicking on the .vbox file for the first launching did the trick.

I downloaded and mounted the Ubuntu Linux 15.04 from the torrent link provided officially. In order mount the share folder between host and Virtual Box, I need root password. I tried everything but in vain.
e.g. After opening the terminal I wrote “sudo password root” and then press enter. Terminal asks for the password I wrote “reverse” but in vain.
Would you please provide the root password.
Thanks
–
Ali

I downloaded the debian-5.0-x86.7z. And created a VM with virtualbox on it. However when I started the VM, and just saw a terminal without desktop. And I checked the /bin. I found that it contained just a few commands.

I have tried to download the last 2 Ubuntu files (“13.04 x86” & “15.04 x86_64”). Both of these say “Link: Torrent”. But if I click the Torrent link, it opens up another window that says “This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it.” I tried to download the torrent file itself and manually launch it into BitTorrent, but the download fails with a status of “Failed – Forbidden”. If I click the “More information” link for the download, it says “This error means you don’t have permission to download this file from the server.”

I noticed the Slackware images are severely lacking. I saw the previous comment about providing new images for Archlinux. I would like to do the same for Slackware. I’d happily make images for all the (relatively) recent versions.

Do you have guidelines for how you want the images created? Like OS CPU type (x86 or x86_64), disk space, disk type, packages, updates (only from disk, or complete upgrade to today), etc.

It seems others, like CentOS, aren’t current either, and the Amazon torrent links are broken. I wouldn’t mind helping out to make images for some of them. Doing all of them would be a bit too much. Or is this an abandon project?

Hi JW Smythe.
The project definitely need some love. Having transitioned to a full-time job leaves me with very little time to do anything. In fact, I migrated the current files to a better server and had not time to actually finish it. So you have the half-assed broken download link.
I am alone as of yet (AFAIK the other collaborators are not able to help any more) but if you wish to help we can try to bring this project back from pasture.
I will be contacting you in private.